Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Dylan Comp.

Got this from Tom in Ill., evidently Bob Dylan has included us in his "Songs I wish I'd written" compilation record. Actually, it's theme based and from his satellite radio show. Check it out here...http://www.undercoverhd.com/news/Story.aspx?id=4207

Thanks Tom!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

me last night

 
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Davey B!!!

 
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Greg Rice...

is a baaaaad....shut yo mouth....!

 
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International Pop Overthrow

 
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Well, they put me in the back of the class again. These festival type stage set-ups don’t really work for me as far as putting on the show that we are used to. The drums HAVE to be in the back usually, and that was the case last night at the International Pop Overthrow. But all in all, The OakTeam showed up and rocked pretty damn hard. Having not played since Christmas night, we kinda used the gig as a practice. It showed a few times too, with me forgetting a few lines here and there. And it’s always the ones that you’ve been doing the longest that you screw up, you ever notice that? I mean, how many times have I played “I Can Give You Everything”? The second verse just jumped right outta my head, until the fourth verse came around and by then I had totally wiffed and just started making shit up. That’s what makes it fun though, huh? If we were perfect every time, (although you wouldn’t be surprised) it might get boring. We had a blast playing together again though and I was a little sad that I wasn’t in the van for the short tour from Raleigh to Chapel Hill with the other guys. We’ll get outta town for more ignunce soon though, I’m sure. Oh! And I was wrong about 5 or 6 people being there. It was more like 10 or 12. WooHoo! Building up that following! That’s what it’s all about. By the time I’m 60, we’ll have 20 or 22 people at our gigs! Now, THAT’S gonna rock!

Friday, February 22, 2008

cruise'08

Friday Jan.25, 2008
The puddle jump from Raleigh to Baltimore was over before it began and it made me wonder what Lewis and Clark would have thought of these flying contraptions. It was a short layover and 6 hours later our successfully boring flight to San Diego was landing. My stomach was hurting with hunger as Southwest doesn’t provide meals anymore, even on these long flights, just peanuts and diet chocolate chip cookies.
As I walked out of the airport, there was the shuttle to the hotel, right on time. Easy check-in, everything was paid for and awaiting my arrival. I had a couple Guinness drafts at the bar before heading up to my room to fight with the zipper on my bag for about 20 minutes. It finally surrendered so I wiped the sweat away and laid down.
Saturday Jan.26, 2008
The Fabulous Knobs, after being injected with the mischief of NRBQ, used to do a play in the middle of our show. In the play, David Enloe would pretend to be waking early from a late night and scream “Go to Hell!” at someone cutting grass outside or otherwise making annoying loud noises. That’s what I felt like this morning as I looked out my window at 7am and saw the construction on a high rise where the jackhammer noise was coming from. This was NOT going to work but I needed to get on up anyway to insure not missing the boat, literally. I walked the street outside a bit and grabbed a coffee. Finally it was time to board the ship.
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The cattle line wasn’t so bad and I breezed right on through already having the necessary paperwork in hand. I was starved since I basically had not eaten since leaving NC so I went straight to the Lido deck on the 9th floor where the mess hall was. Grouper, salad and melon hit the spot and we still had an hour or so to wait for our rooms so I went on the top deck where the basketball court was and shot a few airballs. In my mind I could hear the Dukies shouting, “airbaaaaall, airbaaaaall, airbaaaaall!.”
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I met up with cabin neighbor and fellow Dinkie, Jim Chapdelaine (heretofore known as Winky Dinky )and we got caught up on things. Later I ran into some other friends and they invited me to eat dinner with them. I wasn’t really hungry but I was starting to get sleepy (being on West Coast time and all) so I figgered I’d get it over with. After my appetizer and some not so stimulating conversation ;
me- “So what do you do in Nashville, Eddy?”
Eddy- “work”
…..mmmmmm. OK, that was engaging.
…I began to feel sick. I was a queasy and uneasy feeling and I couldn’t figger out why. Then I realized what was going on, along with some loud banging going on outside the boat was starting to rock a little. I inhaled my Mahi and excused myself. I knew at this point I would be missing the live performances that evening. I stopped by Jim’s cabin and grabbed a couple Dramamine tablets. I laid on my bed and read Mac’s “All the Rage” for about 10 minutes before I had to just give up for the night. I woke up 12 hours later.
Sunday Jan.27, 2008
After breakfast I flung up a few more airballs and then headed back to my room to watch one of the best bad movies ever “Pajama Party” with Annette Funicello. It’s a ridiculous story that somehow links together hot babes, lunkheads, an Indian (BusterKeaton), an idiot biker gang, bad surf music and a nice old lady with a lot of money.
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3pm practice in Al’s room was blast. Michael Rhodes is a badass bass player, y’all and an all around great guy. His wife, Lindsey is from NC and cool as well. I got back to the my room and DIDN’T watch the feature movie, “Titanic”.
The temp was in the high 50’s at gig time (7:30), but we were all in a sweat by the end of the first song “Pawn Shop Guitars”. We did about a dozen more numbers and worked the crowd into a dance frenzy. It’s funny how young old people can get when the beat takes over their bodies. We had sushi afterwards and caught the last half of Raul Malo’s show. He’s gotta be one of the best singers in America, with the silky smoothness of Elvis and Roy Orbison’s range he can sing just about anything. Watched “Airplane” and went to bed.
Monday Jan.28, 2008
I felt the boat swaying as the morning sunlight peaked through the curtains. I knew what this meant, we were getting close to port. Without a stitch of clothing I went out on my deck (they are mostly all private) and started taking pictures. The scenery was astounding. Minus the unicorns and leprechauns, I saw this rainbow shooting in the sky from out of a mountain.
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Soon I saw blowholes from whales and stingrays jumping out of the water to save their own asses from the sharks. What kind of place was this? So surreal the scene that I had to lay down again just in case I hadn’t really woken up yet. Jim and I and our friends Jennifer and Joy took a lifeboat to shore and began checking out Cabo San Lucas.
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We ran into Michael (Kinky Dinkie) and found a little bar to hang out at and have a few cheap Mexican beers. Joy, Jim and I caught a cab over to the beach and had a ceremony for Jim’s friend, Amy. She died of breast cancer last year and loved Cabo. Jim said a few words as he let her ashes blow over the beach. A few yards up the beach we ran into Tom (Raul’s drummer ) and his friend, Thea. They told us about a good place for margaritas so we followed them there. This was the beginning of the end for me. Once again I successfully missed all of the live performances that evening on the boat.
Tuesday Jan.29, 2008
Not feeling so very good a lot, I opted to stay on the boat today even though we were in port at a brand new town, Mazatlan. I heard it was beautiful but the locals hawking silver were like vultures. It was hot and sticky in the morning so I decided that this would be a good day to hang in my room and read and run a few song ideas through my head. In the evening I picked election coverage over live boat performances. This meant that I had been on the boat for 3 days and had only seen half an hour of music even though it was going on constantly every day after noon.
Wednesday Jan.30, 2008
Once again feeling the boat coming into port I peaked out the curtains and saw the silhouette of the Sierra Madres as they hid the morning sun. There was an expressway below with a flat screen billboard showing ads. As the sun crept up I began to see more and more of what was just behind the freeway, a frickin’ WAL-MART!
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I can’t get away from them damn things! After my usual smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, I met up with all of the Dinky family members (minus Al, who never leaves the boat) and we had fabulous time just walking around the old town and boardwalk of Puerto Vallarta. It was a Camber of Commerce day weather wise, as they say, which made our visit all the more pleasant. We walked up a hill overlooking the water and the town and then descended to a little waterfront cafĂ©, Las Palomas for fish tacos, ceviche and guacamole. The cool breeze blew in as we just hung out, ate and enjoyed the view and the company.


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About 1 or 2pm we wandered back on to the boat, without souvenirs. Back in my room, I read some more and rested for a while. The time change really got to me this trip.
After some sushi about 7:30, Al was doing a Songwriter Show down at the Queen’s Lounge. It’s an intimate 200 seater, with about another 100 standing. Also on the show were Raul Malo, Sharon Vaughn and Winky Dinky as guitar sideman. Winky wanted to KILL the soundman who was clearly inept and made his guitar sound more like a kazoo than a guitar, and to add insult to injury he had to piss really bad but couldn’t excuse himself. I was invited to a party on the 8th floor but declined, opting instead for ice cream. Not wanting to feel bad the next day for the gig. I stop by Jim’s (Winky’s) room before calling it a night. He wasn’t there but just as I was entering my room I saw him round the corner. All of a sudden I noticed a noise not unlike a home fire alarm, just a tone, a steady annoying tone. We were talking about how he wanted to kill the soundman and would I help when that noise took over the conversation, “you think there’s a fire or something?” We were a bit worried. We say our goodnights and Jim’s room key doesn’t work. He walks to the Service Desk on the 1st floor. While he’s there he asks the lady about that noise. “Do you hear that?” “Yes, I do” she says. “I’m sure everything is fine, sir”. He goes back to his room still puzzled and with his new key goes inside and starts to get ready for bed. He pulls out his wallet and his other small cargo from his pockets. He takes out his tuner…Beeeeeeeeeeep! The noise was his damn tuner the whole time, accidentally pushed to the mode that just plays a note.
January 31, 2008
Took it easy most of the morning, shot a few hoops with our friend Jennifer but the wind was pretty stupid strong. I was shooting at the left edge of the backboard in order to make anything! At about 2pm James Hunter took the Lido Deck stage. He was (and I guess, still is) a white Englishster dude who started the show sounding like Sam Cooke and finished it sounding like James Brown. It was a good band with two horn guys and was a perfect backdrop for watching whales on a beautiful day.
At 6pm, we had rehearsal in Al’s room that turned out to be a lot of fun. Jo-El Sonier stopped by to learn Battleship Chains. Jo-El is a badass on accordion. He showed up to the room without his instrument and just went thru the finger motions. At show time, 9:45pm, the wind was absolutely howling. Hats were flying off of people’s heads and into the Pacific 50 feet below. The boat was in a constant sway and the drums became a challenge to play while they were moving around. But from the first note of “Get Rhythm” The Dinkies were on fire! One after another we blistered OakTeam-like from one song into the next, so loose, so tight and so much damn fun! After we killed “Battleship” with Jo-El, Al went into a song he had a big hit with by The Mavericks, “All you ever do is bring me down”. Jo-El played great on that one too. The whole show was rockin’ and despite the cold breeze we were again sweating our asses off. “If you’re cold, you ain’t dancing!” I shouted in the 50 degree 50 mph winds. After the show we went up to the lounge on the other end of the boat to “party”. As per my agreement with myself of “no drinking on the boat unless it’s free”, I had been pretty sober most of the trip. But I wasn’t about to turn down a couple of red wines if they were handed to me.
Thanks Kinky and Minky!
We learned that the “money” guys on the boat were really impressed with the show, so much so that they called it one of the 2 best shows ever on the Delbert Blues Cruise.
We saw a rock star moment when Raul accidentally knocked over and broke a glass and then picked up another one and threw it against the wall while he was at it.
February 1, 2008
I like to guess the time when I get up in the mornings and at other times of the day.
I’m usually within 15 minutes correct. This morning I guessed it was 9:15am and finally found the time on the TV to concur. 8:15! How can I be that far off?! I was redeemed when I later found out that we had lost an hour overnight. It was cloudy and chilly and we were obviously getting back closer to the US. I was still laughing at our conversations from the night before and mostly about our misuse and abuse of the word, dinky. My favorite was the term “dink tank”, as in a room you go into to get dumber. Clever boys we were, we thought of everything but the kitchen dink…sorry about that one. It was like The Flintstones and all of their rock references.
Late morning as I was packing, the boat got wobbly again. I took a Dramamine and woke up from a nap at about 1:30pm. Had lunch and ran into Al and we decided to meet up at his room to listen to the recording from the night before. It sounded pretty damn rockin’.
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There was a buzz about this guy Paul Thorn so after dinner Jim and I decided to check him out. About halfway through the second song we left. We came back at 9 for Delbert’s week-ending-blues-free-for-all. Miraculously we stayed for almost 4 whole songs before I announced that I’d rather be watching “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”, which is what I went and did after stopping by Kinky and Minky’s room.
February 2, 2008
I was ready to go home and while it felt like a high school reunion most of the time, there were lots of poignant moments too. Our ceremony for Jim’s friend Amy comes to mind as well as our dedication of “Trip Around the Sun” at each gig to a very sick (co-writer) Stephan Bruton. Not the least of these moments were our times with a girl named Cindy from Columbia, NC. Her doctors gave her 3 months to live 6 months ago and she booked this trip anyway and came and lived every moment of it with a big ‘ol smile on her face (especially when I gave her my sticks after our second gig). Our friend Suzy took special care of her (being a nurse) and gathered CD’s and other signed merch from all of the artists to present to her. Every year I meet a few very inspirational “bucket listers”. Last year I met a lady named Linda who must not have made it or I feel sure she’d have been back. They all want, understandably one more breath of joy, happiness, good times and good music. I’m always really thankful when I can be part of something cool like that.
Keep on rockin’, Cindy!
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The flight back was along one with stops in San Antonio and Orlando. When I landed at RDU I was more than ready for the world to stop moving below my feet.
But as usual, it was a pressure and I really endured it!

Aaaahchooo!

I’d like to go ahead and personally thank the 5 or 6 people that will be at our (11:30) gig in Chapel Hill tonight at Local 506. I probably won’t be able to thank you tonight for coming because of this cold I have but I’m sure you’ll be glad you came when you hear hits like “Git AAAAAHCHOOO Up the Road”, “I Feel a SNEEZE Coming on”, “Mr. Noseblowerman” and “Under the Weather or Not”.
Y’all know I’m a basketball freak, hell I wouldn’t move to Nashville because I couldn’t get Tarheel basketball out there. It’s been a pretty good week for UNC, what with Duke losing twice and letting us back in at the top and two demoralizing victories over VaTech and NC State. I heard that the RBC is now referred to as ROY’S BASKETBALL COURT. Ouch! It should be a fun run in March!
Speaking of ACC basketball, we had a game RAIN OUT last night in Atlanta between Va. and GaTech. Now that’s just ignunt! The roof was leaking at Alexander Mem. Coliseum and they couldn’t guarantee that is was gonna stop so they pulled the plug.
Hell, they can flip a coin for the V for the difference that it will make in the standings.
That’s 2 sucky teams.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

signing

I was having a blast tonight watching (on CSPAN-2) a really inspirational speech by D-Illinois Gov. Brangojevich (or Bandochevitzsky or Manochevizt or..whatever it was!), and I do mean WATCHING! I didn’t HEAR a damn thing that guy said. I was having way too much fun watching the girls tag team signing behind him! Damn! It was killing me! The first girl was twitchin’, making faces, sticking out her curled up tongue, pointing at her forehead, shooting herself the bird, shooting her other hand the bird, sticking her pinkies in her eyes, grabbing her imaginary horn on her head, frowning, laughing, crying, picking her nose (I don’t think that meant anything other than a booger was getting worked loose), slapping herself, pointing at the sky, diggin’ taters, acting like she was cutting her hand off, giving that “gnawing on a bone” look, closing one eye while cocking up a leg to fart, shooting the Gov. the bird (I think she meant that!), pretending to eat a hot dog, catching popcorn in her mouth, riding a bike and then finally doing the “here’s the church and here’s the steeple open the door and here’s the people” thing. THEN the other girl came up, basically in mid-sentence whilst the sumbitch was still rambling’ on, babblin’ on to Babylon, and started signing. Still! I wasn’t paying a DAMN bit of attention to what he was saying, I was just watching her pretend to motion something about building a new tomorrow and a new America or some other such shit from what I could tell. The second girl wasn’t quite as funny, although she made her share of faces at the old fart which were very entertaining, so I began to think about turning the channel over to the results show of American Idol. Good thing I did too or I would have missed a BADASS! video by Paula and Randy. The melody was so damn hook-a-tatious that I’m going out looking to buy that bitch tomorrow! (It was something called “Dance Like This” or some such shit) I turned the mutha right wide ass open and imagined myself dancing all over the place. That’s when I started signing the words. Can the OakTeam get someone to sign the lyrics to my songs?
That would be cool.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Carrie Underwood!

I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I could have met Ann Margaret back when I was a kid. When my mom took me to the movies to see Viva Las Vegas I went to bed dreaming about those legs. Man! She was hot!
Well my son, Nathan has a childhood crush of his own going on right now with Carrie Underwood and as he was on her website the other night he figgered something out. She is gonna be in Raleigh on HIS birthday, April 19th! He came to tell me the news and when he said that she’d be opening for Keith Urban a light went off in my head. You see, my very good friend, Brad Rice plays with Keith. Well, I just got off the phone with Brad and it seems that certain young man from Bunn is fiddin’ to have the biggest birthday of his life. Yep! My boy Brad’s gonna hook us up and don’t worry, I’m gonna have my camera ready when Nathan meets his “girlfriend”! What are the chances she would be in town on his birthday? Awesome! Of course, I’m looking forward to hanging with Brad and meeting Keith. Should be fun!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

al's room

we were listening to the gig from the night before in:

al's room

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Krazy Dave

I met Krazy Dave today. Krazy Dave was the drummer in TOKEN! Shit, if I’d known that I’d been scared to meet him, or got his autograph or something. Y’all remember TOKEN, right? They had a record on CMC Records out of Zebulon, NC back in the '80's.. They got played on the radio, NC State’s 88.1 college rock station! (“a bunch!” according to Dave). He showed me the damn record and despite the fact that the graphics on the front were little like a runner up to a Jr. High School art contest, it was in fact a real record with his picture drawn on the back. I declined the listen. He said he wasn’t into playing music for fun anymore, only money. And he wanted to hook up with someone who had a future and could sing all of the songs all of the way through. Krazy Dave is my age, 51 and not so very attractive a lot. He has a bus on the side of his house. “You play drums? Oh, You’re gonna LOVE these! These are old school!” He takes me into the bus and at the very back are a beat up set of white Rogers drums, double bass and the toms have the bottom heads taken off. The front heads of both bass drums read “Rocky Cross” inside of a bloody red heart. Rocky Cross is the community where he lives and has his business of aligning front ends of cars, the reason I went to Krazy Dave’s in the first place. Rocky Cross is where my dad grew up. Behind the driver’s seat is the mixer to the PA, a small one. Amps line the walls of the bus, with a TV sitting on one of them One mike stands in the middle. He promised some guy he’d give him one hour a week to come over and impress him. No jammimg, “Fuck that!” he says. “I want songs that have the words in the places that you can just speak them, and they are all right there.” OK, Dave!
He’s got a shaved head with a ponytail out the back. Dave seemed unimpressed by my gold records and such, he was just having a good ’ol time talking about himself, so I let him. Talk about about wishing you had your camera with you! I damn sure did.
Krazy Dave, y’all remember him, right? He was on the radio!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

what blog?

Oh shit! I almost forgot that I had a blog! After not thinking about it for a week or so it kinda slipped my mind. Besides what would I talk about, the Mexico trip? Awww...that was boring, except for the 2 gigs The Dinkies played (that was pretty damn exciting and super-double-awesome rockin’!) and the whales and other sea life that I saw. I might transcribe the notes I took…one day.
The news of this week though is that The OakTeam is playing NEXT Friday night (the 22nd) at 506 in Chapel Hill for the International Pop Overthrow Festival thingy that’s going on over there. THEN on the Saturday before St. Patty’s Day we’re playing The Pour House. Last year it was a madhouse on that day! The beerfest across the street made for some drunk-ass folks in there that night! The 15th is also a special day for The OakTeam. It’s Jack’s birthday! Shhhhh…don’t tell him we’re throwing a big party for him.
& My Dad’s doing great BTW..even swinging his golf clubs a bit...
OH! And here’s something weird! Much like the dream I had the night before 9/11 when I dreamed about a plane flying down 5th Ave., this past Sunday morning I had a dream that my friend Mike Shane got a DUI. This is significant why? Well, I hadn’t seen or talked to him in months and as I was trimming up my Japanese maples on Sunday I looked up up and guess who was walking in my yard towards me? Yep! Mike, no DUI though....too weird!
Dan says things are going great with the recording of his new record…
Back to basketball…!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

new site up

The DoubleNaught Records website is FINALLY up and provides yet another way to find good music. The label was just a name I used to put out my solo stuff with and since Jack has beefed (or tofu-ed, whichever you prefer) up the recording studio end of things and brought in Jonathan Lowery for optimum tonal quality it’s actually turning into something really cool. We have on-staff graphics, Paul Friedrich, a great engineer (JL), Jack has producing ears on his head which I also like to dabble in (ie: Keith’s record) and we use only the best mastering (Brent Lambert) and manufacturing. Just released is the new record by The T’s (no, not named after me!) which pretty much rocks like ass since OakTeam guitar player Big Daddy Dave Bartholomew doublenaught produced it! Also getting glowing reviews is the very recently released Jack Cornell (w/ Jonathan) produced “Shine Like a Bottle”, the second record from The Cartridge Family. Still to come is the recently mastered “Trailer Park Angel” by Monty Warren (another J&J production), The Woods box set and a new Oakteam studio record. Remember, these things take time, which is what often makes them so good…like a fine wine! You’ll also find show dates on here too so check it out!
http://www.doublenaughtrecords.com/

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Frank

Jim had a little towel art surprise of his own waiting for our cabin boy, Sali one day....
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Friday, February 08, 2008

towel art

Every night that we would go "out" (how far out can you go on a damn boat?),
our "cabin boy" (dude that would clean our room and make our bed)...
would leave us the present of some sort of towel art!
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stone faced


Yeah, there's a resemblance, but when did Henry Fonda start playing guitar with the damn Rolling Stones?
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serpent


These painted tiles were a disturbance to me on the cruise ship. Every day, several times a day I had to stare at this thing as I stood at the toilet. Is it a dude, a baldheaded lady with horns, are those boobs and most disturbing...is it's butt on backwards or what? What is that!?
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Damn Dinkies

Jennifer took this pic of The Dinkies right after our 50 degree x 30mph wind gig on top of the boat that everyone is still talking about. It was like opening the gates of Hell and letting the horses out to stomp the shit outta everyone...and they never let up.
So on the boat, I had a lot of time to myself so I wrote a small novel which will take me years and maybe some of my kid's years to put up on the blog but I will be semi-diligent in getting that up...so never fear! It really was a lotta fun, and I promise to tell you all about it...someday.
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Monday, February 04, 2008

Clobbered in Cabo

We were having a great time, enjoying the beautiful scenery down in Cabo San Lucas,
really cool arched rock formations with seals shitting and whales blowing off steam...
It was a beautiful day and a walk on the beach was in order, and a pose for the camera...
We stopped in for a couple Margaritas and then Jim (Winky Dinky) said something and I really let him have it!

click to enlarge
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Sunday, February 03, 2008

Dinkies Rule!


The Dinkies kicked ass on the boat to the Mexican Riviera, prompting one of the "money guys" to say "That was one of the two best shows ever on the blues cruise!" (14 years worth) OK, I'm dying to know...what was better!? Full report on the way...
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